Separation of scripture and ethics

The current situation in New South Wales is that parents will not be advised if ethics classes are available at their school unless they opt out of sending their children to scripture classes.

Education Minister Adrian Piccoli told Adam Spencer on 702 Breakfast that it wasn't an attempt to hide the classes and that he thinks the ethics classes have a lot of value.

"I've seen the content of a number of the classes that are offered and they do provide value for people who choose not to do Special Religious Education," he said.

The leader of the Christian Democratic Party Reverend Fred Nile told Linda Mottram on 702 Mornings that parents still have plenty of choices.

"Parents have a choice for their child from all the different Christian denominations, or they can choose Buddhist or Islamic scripture and so on.

"After they've rejected all of those they will then be asked 'would you like your child to go to the ethics class?'" Reverend Nile said.

"The priority in our state school system is for religious instruction and we want to maintain that priority," he added.

Reverend Nile told Linda that he would rather the ethics classes weren't offered at all.

"I don't agree with the curriculum," he said.

"There's no ethical code as a basis for the ethics course, it's a philosophical discussion," he added.

Philip Cam, Ethicist and Associate Professor in the school of Humanities at the University of New South Wales explained the history of the debate.

"Ethics was offered as an alternative for those kids who are not going to scripture.

"There was always a system in place where people signed out of scripture and then they would be offered an alternative if they wanted one," Philip Cam said.

Professor Cam also suggested philosophy as another alternative to scripture classes.

"Philosophy deals with all of the large questions of life, without a religious angle to it," he said.

"Ethics would be one component of that but it would consider a much wider range of questions that actually come up in a religious context too, but have been asked for thousands of years by philosophers who were interested in the same kinds of issues," he added.